Citizen-centric public services in the Western Balkans: Webinar 1 - Service design and user experience, 5 April 2022. Presentation given by Bruna Monteiro, Centricity.

1. SIGMA webinar series: Citizen-centric public services in the Western Balkans
Citizen-centricity, service design and
user experience in public
administration
April 5th 2022

2. The Observatory of Public Sector Innovation (OPSI) helps governments on
their journey of transformation by providing them with strategic guidance
and specific support to embrace innovation and effectively respond to
the ever-changing needs of their citizens.
Work
Areas
Toolkit
Navigator
Case Study
Library
Behavioural
Insights
Knowledge
Hub
Anticipatory
Innovation
Innovation
Missions
Cross-border
Gov
Systems
Approaches
Innovation
Management

3. INNOVATION
FACETS MODEL Mission-oriented
Innovation
Anticipatory
Innovation
Adaptive
Innovation
Enhancement-oriented
Innovation
UNCERTAINTY
Exploring/Radical
CERTAINTY
Exploiting/Incremental
DIRECTED
Shaping/Top-down
UNDIRECTED
Responding/Bottom-up

4. CITIZEN-CENTRIC INNOVATION:
PUBLIC SERVICE DESIGN FOR CHANGE
Exploration Co-Creation Experimentation Implementation
& Assessment
Source:
icon-library
Using evidence-based and
inclusive approaches to
understand the challenges,
needs and expectations from
citizens (and mapping the
service blueprint)
Generate ideas and design
proposals through
participatory and collaborative
methods
Test before implement,
controlling risks, engaging
users and drawing lessons
(including from apparent
“failures”)
Adopt solutions keeping track
of users’ experience and
feedback and being aware of
prospective

5. EXPLORATION
• Users at the center: USA.gov has updated its platform as
web portal of the United States federal government. For
adapting their services to their users, they have created
journey maps that describe the behavior and experience
of their users across multiple channels of contact.
• Grass-rooting the research: They have designed personas
that rely on an extensive number of data sources, from
web analytics to workshops with backstage employees
and users.
• Focus on experiences: This evidence-based approach
enabled the detection of pain points and gaps, the
emotions and information exchanges at each contact
point for all the channels.
• Opportunities for improvement: The opportunities thus
identified were used to define the improvement queue
for the contents, design and performance assessment of
their channels and interfaces.
Source:
digital.gov

6. CO-CREATION
• Public services and their channels: As a way to solve the
problems existing in public communications with citizens,
the National Department of Planning (DNP), in Colombia,
has designed the Plain Language program.
• Performance, participation and trust: The goals were to
increase service efficiency, promote transparency and
trust, enhance citizen participation and increase social
inclusion.
• Mutual collaboration: For that purpose, the proposed
methodology – Simplicity Labs - engages public servants
and citizens to collaborate around the same table.
• Oriented to tangible proposals: Through their joint
activities, the methodology enables the identification of
communication issues and the translation of those
communications to a plain, useful and accessible
language.
Source:
cali.gov.co

7. EXPERIMENTATION
• Public services as laboratories for self-improvement: The
Portuguese LabX (AMA) promoted the program Public
service as a living lab, where a real public service was
transformed into a lab to test innovative solutions with
citizens.
• Stakeholder engagement: The living lab engage citizens,
public servants and experts around an evidence-based and
experimental approach to test potential solutions.
• Try and learn on the ground: The first phase consisted in
evolving and testing prototypes related to face-to-face
service through constant interaction with citizens and public
servants.
• Technology on the everyday life of citizens: The second
phase was designed with the purpose of testing
technological solutions developed by the Public
Administration, identifying the difficulties experienced by
citizens in their use.
Source:
labx.gov.pt

8. IMPLEMENTATION & ASSESSMENT
• New solutions to cope with curtailments: The Australian
Center for Social Innovation (TACSI) promoted the
initiative Family by family as a way to address challenges in
the Australian welfare services and policies.
• Bring citizens to support delivery of services and policies:
The program matches Seeking and Sharing families to
generate a cycle of sharing and support in order to attain
their goals.
• Scaling: The program is a model that enable an
exponential growth and the creation of wide-reaching
changes: one professional Family Coach works with 15
Sharing Families, who in turn work with 40 Seeking
Families, reaching up to 100 children at risk.
• Monitoring, measurement and evaluation: Measuring
change is embedded in the approach from the start. The
program has an cost benefit ratio of 1:7.
Source:
tacsi.org.au

9. Rules of thumb
Citizen-centricity
The point of view of citizens
should be used to define the
challenges, assume an integrated
approach to channels and/or
departments, consider the
impacts of innovation.
Service design
Not go for guesses, engage users
throughout the process. Assure
stakeholder engagement to build
trust and synergies. Learn with
testing methods. Always keep
back- and front-stage in synch.
User experience
Not just creating a solution
(technological or not), but ensuring
its actual use is efficient, inclusive
and trustful for citizens. Detect
emergent trends and anticipate
changes. Always assess and evaluate
user experience – and use it to
sustain feedback loops
Source:
icon-library

10. Any suggestion or question, please contact:
bruno.monteiro@oecd.org
Thank you!
April 5th 2022